Simon's a Luke Champ
by sophronia
Summary: Simon goes to big brother Matt for advice on how to get girls to fall in love. Matt's advice is a little, um, unusual.


SIMON'S A LUKE CHAMP

This story is set at the end of Season 6. Story inspired by the 7th Heaven Lyric Wheel. Lyrics can be found at the end of the story. Both the show and the song are owned by giant entertainment conglomerates and not me personally.

***********

Finally, some peace and quiet.

Matt Camden carefully checked up and down the hallway of the Camden house. No one in sight. He went into his room, closed the door, and locked it. Then he pulled the blinds shut. Turning on the bedside lamp, Matt furtively reached under the largest Hello Kitty, which sat primly on top of the pile on the floor.

He pulled out a book: _Sex for Beginners_.

Sitting down on the bed, he took out a note pad and a pencil and began to make notes on Chapter One.

Matt would not normally have read a book like that one, but he was thinking ahead to his wedding night, now only a few weeks away. He just wanted it to be perfect, both for himself and for Sarah, his intended bride.

It seemed to him, when he thought back, that they had already been married. It almost seemed like he might already have had a wedding night, on the same day that he had proposed, the same day they had first met. But the memory was very faint, and the more Sarah insisted that they weren't really married, the more convinced he was that it couldn't be true. After all, what kind of person would do something silly like that? He was Matt Camden, the smart and responsible one. So now, when he finally did marry the woman he would be with for the rest of his life, he was determined that it be everything both he and Sarah had ever dreamed of. That other wedding night, well, that must be nothing but a dream.

Just as he settled in to the really interesting part, he heard a knock on the door.

Matt jumped and looked around the room wildly. He quickly shoved the book under Hello Kitty and then composed himself briefly before stuttering, "Wh-wh-wh-who's there?"

"It's me, Simon."

"Oh, hi," Matt said uncomfortably, running his hands through his hair with distress. "How's everything going?"

"Pretty lousy, actually," Simon moaned. "I need to ask you for some advice."

Matt relaxed and smiled. Now here was something he was an expert on: giving big brotherly advice. Simon had certainly come to the right place. "Go ahead," he told his younger brother, "I'm listening."

"You see," Simon began as Matt heard a sad guitar playing softly in the background, "I always thought that once I grew up I'd be exactly like you. I mean, I'd be smart enough to be valedictorian even though I never had very good grades. And that my hair would grow out and be all long and beautiful like yours, even though I had long hair before, when I was a kid, and it made me look like a Muppet."

Matt smiled, thinking of his long hair and how amazing it looked. Girls in particular loved it. "Go on."

"The one thing I really wanted was for girls to fall for me all the time, like they did for you. You never had to work to get pretty girls, they were always after you. Any time you wanted a date you got one, with the hottest girls in school." Simon sighed, and the guitar changed to another sad chord. "But it's just not happening for me. No matter what I do, girls don't seem to like me. The only girl who's gone out with me all year is that one trying to make her boyfriend jealous, and the one who was pregnant." The guitar twanged unhappily. 

"Are you listening to music or something?" Matt asked suspiciously.

"No, I'm playing my guitar," Simon answered. "It's a little song I wrote called _Where Can You Go When the World Won't Treat You Right. Wanna hear it?"_

"No," Matt responded quickly. "I mean, I think we'd be better off working on your problem before we get all distracted."

"Oh, sure," Simon said. The guitar made a brief strum of wacky hijinks before fading away. "So, Matt, how do I go about getting myself a girl?"

Matt opened the door and put a finger to his lips. "Highly confidential information," he said significantly. "You can't tell this to anyone. Understand?"

"I do," Simon whispered. Leaving his guitar out in the hallway, he entered the Hello Kitty sanctuary.

"Now here's the important part," Matt said expansively, trying to look older and big brotherly. "The number-one, most successful thing that you can do is to convince girls that you are cool. That's what girls want, coolness. It's the one thing you've got to be."

"But everyone knows I'm not cool," Simon whined. "I'm Simon Camden, the preacher's kid."

Matt leaned back and adopted a wise-Buddha expression. "Well, little brother," he drawled, "what worked for me is to always convince them that you know more than they do. And the best way to do this is to use a word they don't know."

"Huh?"

"You know, use a word they don't know. Like, a slang word before it becomes popular. And if you say it loud enough, you'll always sound precious." Matt wrinkled his handsome brow. "No, wait. I mean that other word. It looks like precious, but it means really smart."

"Slang words before they become popular?" Simon said bitterly. "How in the world are you supposed to figure that out? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."

"Fine," Matt snapped. "If you don't like my advice, you can try to figure out how to get a girl yourself. I've got better things to do anyway."

"No, wait! I didn't mean it! You've got to help me!"

"Too late, little brother. I guess you'll just never learn how to take other people's advice like a man does. Now get out."

Miserably, Simon slunk out into the hallway. His guitar, he noted, was gone. Great, now he'd probably get a lecture from Dad about not taking care of his things, and he'd have to do extra chores for weeks before he could get his guitar back. He could hear his father now: "Men always take care of their things because they realize the value of their belongings. And they always know exactly how to talk to girls to get them to fall in love. Simon, just when will you learn to step up and be a man?" 

Dragging himself into his room, he closed his door and threw himself on the bed. No point in worrying about his guitar now. He concentrated instead on trying to figure out Matt's advice. How would he go about finding a word that no girl knew?

Meanwhile, Matt waited a few seconds until he was sure it was safe, then pulled out his book. It opened to a random page, and a slip of paper fell out. 

_Dear Matt,_

_You really shouldn't be reading this._

_Your loving sister, _

_Ruthie_

Matt sighed, closed the book, and lay back on the bed, daydreaming about how nice it would be when he could finally get married and live like a normal guy. 

*****

"So I figured it out!" Simon announced triumphantly. "It took me all night, but I finally got it!"

"Got what?" Morris mumbled, looking around to make sure that nobody important could see him doing the two things that were guaranteed social suicide at Glenoak High School: walking to school and talking to a Camden.

"You just make up the words!" Simon continued, not noticing Morris's distress. "After all, somebody has to make up the slang words before they become popular, right? They have to start somewhere. So I stayed up all night and made up a whole bunch of really cool words that nobody's ever heard before." He stopped himself. "I mean, really _luke words."_

"What the hell are you talking about?" Morris asked. He was used to Simon Camden saying things that didn't make any sense, but this was ridiculous. 

"That's one of the words I made up!" Simon cried. "See, lots of people say _cool_, and lots of people say _hot_. So I decided to say _luke_, like lukewarm. Get it?" The kid cackled at his own brilliance.

They were approaching the school now. Morris watched jealously as his friends drove past, speeding their way into the student parking lot. His parents had grounded him from using his Jeep for a week after that last party. Since he didn't have to worry about babysitting Simon, he had really cut loose, and things had gotten out of hand. When Simon found out, in typical Camden fashion, he had self-righteously declared, "Well, I guess you didn't learn your lesson last time the way I did."

God, that Simon Camden. He'd only started hanging out with the kid a few months ago, when his older brother Rod had offered Morris $100 to get him back together with Lucy, his ex-girlfriend and Simon's older sister. "She'll be a real asset to my career as a Christian recording artist," Rod said. "Her dad's a minister, and they must have all kinds of connections. Not to mention, she's cute and pure." Rod went into a flourish on his synthesizer, playing his longest song: _The Unfinished Love Symphony, or Lucy's Song_. "We were torn apart," Rod warbled, "by the forces of fate/In a cruel, sinful world full of demons and hate …"

Rather than submit to more aural torture, Morris had agreed. But he hadn't realized what he was getting himself into. Once you said a kind word to the Camdens, they never left you alone. They were determined to solve all your problems, even ones you didn't know you had, and they wouldn't take no for an answer.

Simon had latched onto him like a barnacle to the side of a ship. He earnestly believed that Morris was his ticket to the high school big time and would turn him from loser to babe magnet. His endless scheming to be Mr. Popularity had driven him to do some really dumb things, but Morris was actually awed at the stupidity of this new plan.

"And instead of calling people _dude, I'm going to call them _champ_," Simon was babbling. "It's kind of retro, I think. Retro is very _luke_ right now."_

"Who told you all this crap?" Morris asked.

"I got the idea from my brother Matt. He said it always worked for him. And he had lots of girlfriends and was valedictorian."

Well, that explained it. The Camdens were the only people left in Glenoak who still believed that Matt Camden was smart. Everyone else knew that Matt's being valedictorian was the result of somebody hacking into the computer files and changing everybody's GPA as part of a senior prank. The school had fixed the computer and sent out notes informing everyone of the errors, but the Camdens had absolutely refused to accept it. After a brief visit from Sgt. Michaels, the principal just gave in and bought off the real valedictorian with a $1,000 scholarship. It was still gossiped about all over town.

Morris grimaced. Despite his cool exterior, deep down he liked to think of himself as a nice guy. He knew that a nice guy would never let Simon walk into the school and humiliate himself like this. But stopping him might prove difficult. Simon seemed determined, and Morris's desire to be a nice guy was outweighed by his need to avoid being seen by all of Glenoak High as the friend and ally of a Camden. Still, he gave it a shot.

"Simon, that idea is complete bullshit. You can't go in there and do that. Everyone will bust a gut laughing at you."

Simon's eyes darkened. "Oh," he said, "you think you know better than my brother Matt? I don't see _you_ getting picked to be valedictorian. As a matter of fact, if I didn't let you copy my homework, you'd still be getting that D minus in math."

"Whatever," Morris sighed, giving up.

"See, girls are called _crows_. Like chicks, only a different bird," Simon went on cheerfully. "Unless they're really stupid and mean. Then they're called _twats_ – like twits, only with –"

"What?" Morris interjected. "Do you even know what that word means?"

"It doesn't mean anything. I just made it up."

Oh, this was going to be awful. Morris realized that he couldn't be around for this. Not even $500 would be worth the damage to his reputation of being seen with Simon after this fiasco. "Look, I gotta go," he said, sidling away from Simon.

"Where are you going? I haven't told you all my new words yet!"

"Um, I just remembered that I, um, gotta talk to the basketball coach."

"Oh are you going to play on the team?" Simon asked. "That's great! My parents say that athletics are a great way to keep teenagers off drugs and alcohol. I think it would really help you."

"Yeah, uh huh," Morris said. "Bye." He took off running for the gym.

Simon walked proudly into the school building. He couldn't wait to start working his new girl-attracting powers, but he decided that it would be stupid to waste them on just any girl. Better to aim for the top; then the rest of the girls would fall in right in line. The top, of course, were the three smartest and most beautiful girls in the school: Sarah, Cate and Alex. And he was lucky enough to have all three of them in his very first class.

There they were -- totally out of his league, he had always thought. But today, as he watched them at their desks before class, fixing their luscious lip gloss and brushing their glorious hair, laughing at each other's brilliantly witty conversation, he knew that he would soon have them in the palm of his hand. He felt a little drunk with power, and this was the kind of drunk that wouldn't make him sick or get him put on restriction. Taking a deep breath, he headed over to their desks and stood in front of them, waiting to be noticed.

It took a few minutes. They were involved in chatting about some show they'd seen on TV the night before. After a few minutes of just standing there, he began to feel a little uncomfortable.

Then finally, Alex, the blonde, turned her head and noticed him. "Oh, hi, um ….. Simon, isn't it?" she said. 

Here it was, his big chance. "Hey, crow," he began. "I was vanillin on the electric web last hour of darkness and I heard about a really elevatin party this weekend. No shempies or twats allowed, only luke champs and crows. I'll be ritzed if I don't get to gorge with you, so how about presenting me your integers?"

There was a long moment of silence.

"Excuse me?" Alex asked. She and Cate looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

He repeated it, word for word. He noticed a small crowd gathering. Perhaps, he thought, he shouldn't have used all his new words at one time. Maybe he should have held off a bit.

The silence after he finished was longer this time.

"I'm sorry," Sarah said. "Are you speaking English?"

Then he heard the laughter. It started as just a few giggles, but it soon took over the whole class. He felt his face turning red and burning as the laughter filled the entire room. Even Sarah, Cate and Alex were laughing, although they were trying unsuccessfully to hide it. 

"What's so funny?" a kid asked, leaning in the door.

"You wouldn't believe what Camden just said," somebody told him. "C'mon, Camden, say it again!"

"Yeah, say it again!"

"Say it again! Say it again!" the kids began to chant. Simon just stood there, unable to move, wanting to crawl into a hole in the earth and die. 

"All right, that's the bell, everybody take their seats!" the teacher bellowed over the laughter. To Simon's immense relief, the kids began to disperse to their desks, but many of them were still laughing. It took several long minutes for the teacher to get the class settled down, and even then Simon would catch kids turning to look at him, whispering to each other, and giggling. He tried to pretend that it didn't bother him, and that he was only concentrating on the teacher's lecture and the notes he was taking. But he could feel that his face was still red.

A few minutes before the end of class a small folded piece of paper landed on his desk. He looked at it warily. No doubt it was a note full of abuse from some fellow classmate, the kind which he had seen many times before. He wanted to just ignore it, but from the large curly letters spelling out his name, with a big heart over the "I", he knew that the note was from a girl. What were they saying about him? He had to know.

Opening the note, he read, 

_Dear Simon,_

_I think U R cute._

_Love,_

_Cecilia_

Simon turned to the back of the room, where the girl named Cecilia sat. She had been in his classes ever since kindergarten, but he had never paid any attention to her before. She was a little chubby, with mousy brown hair, and she wore clothes that either looked too old (culottes and espadrilles) or too young (pastel sweatshirts with pictures of kittens or bunnies). Still, she was a girl, even if she wasn't attractive or interesting, and so he smiled gratefully at her for the note just as the bell rang and he headed off to his next class, where he somehow knew that the news of his utter humiliation would have preceded him. 

He spent the rest of the day dragging himself from class to class, listening to the roars of laughter that followed him through the halls. Lunchtime was spent hiding in the library. It was yet another humiliation in a long line of them. For a while, he was furious at Matt, and he comforted himself by planning elaborate revenge on his older brother. But by seventh period, the kids had moved on to laughing at some other loser, and Simon calmed down. He didn't have to take Matt's advice, after all. He could have just gone with his instincts and not followed it. So it was really mostly his own fault. Simon decided that the lesson to be learned from this was to never, ever take his older brother's advice about girls. What worked for Matt was obviously not going to work for Simon.

When he got home that afternoon, his father was already there. As he did every day, Reverend Camden asked his son, "So what did you learn in school today?"

"I learned that I can't be just like Matt," Simon said. "I'm a different person, and I've got to be myself."

His father looked at him with pride in his eyes. "That's a very intelligent observation," the reverend said. "I'm proud of you, son. You may just grow up to become a man someday after all." The reverend was so moved at his son's maturity that he reached behind the living-room sofa and pulled out the boy's guitar. "Here you go," he said, handing it to Simon.

"Thanks, Dad!" Simon cried, and he ran upstairs, playing the chords for warm family moments.

*****

Simon considered this occurrence his most humiliating high school experience, but in the end it had two very important consequences. The first was that Simon stopped caring about whether or not he would ever be popular – or, more accurately, he accepted that he was never going to be popular and that he wasn't going to let it bother him. Though there were still a few missteps along the way, Simon would soon be able to be happy being himself.

The second consequence was that Cecilia, the mousy girl in the back of Simon's class, decided that she was unhappy with herself the way she was and that she wanted to make a change. For years she'd been a miserable, lonely girl trying not to attract anyone's attention. It had all started in kindergarten when the kids had made fun of the way her head bobbled. She couldn't help it if her neck muscles were naturally weaker than most people's, but kids can be cruel. So she had started hiding under layers of fat and ugly clothes, and the kids had forgotten about her.

Now, she was ready to blossom. 

For weeks she had been staring at the poster of her very favorite pop star that hung on her bedroom wall. Jessica Simpson was not only blonde and beautiful, with a sexy hot boyfriend, but she was also a good girl. A virgin who had vowed to remain pure until her wedding day. She was the girl Cecilia most wanted to be, and now Cecilia had both the determination and the inspiration to follow her dream. If she were Jessica Simpson, Cecilia knew, she could have Simon Camden, the boy she had loved unrequitedly since the sixth grade.

So that night, Cecilia joined a gym. She went to her doctor and got a diet and exercise plan. She got a job helping her dad scrub toilets at the school and saved all her money for new clothes. With a gift certificate from her birthday, she got a makeover from an expert at the Glenoak Cut & Dye. By the end of that summer, she would be trim, blond, and beautiful, and Simon Camden would notice her.

All that lay in the future on this day, however. But the wheels were already set in motion as Simon tried to ignore the kids giggling at him in the halls, and as Cecilia sat in her next class writing "Mrs. Cecilia Camden" in big swirly letters on her notebook instead of taking notes. "I'm going to marry that boy someday," she thought happily, and judging from what she had seen that morning in class, she was positive that she wouldn't have much competition for his affections. Then she could have the wonderful all-white wedding she had always dreamed of. It would truly be a beautiful day.

THE END

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" 

Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay   
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay   
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!   
Even though the sound of it Is something quite atrocious   
If you say it loud enough   
You'll always sound precocious   
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!   
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay   
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay   
Because I was afraid to speak   
When I was just a lad My father gave me nose a tweak And told me I was bad   
But then one day I learned a word That saved me aching nose   
The biggest word I ever heard And this is how it goes:   
Oh, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!   
Even though the sound of it   
Is something quite atrocious   
If you say it loud enough   
You'll always sound precocious   
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!   
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay   
Um diddle diddle diddle um diddle ay   
So when the cat has got your tongue   
There's no need for dismay   
Just summon up this word And then you've got a lot to say   
But better use it carefully Or it may change your life   
One night I said it to me girl   
And now me girl's my wife!   
She's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!   
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!   
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!   
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! 


End file.
